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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26556139">Skin (unraveling)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemise/pseuds/alchemise'>alchemise</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguous/Open Ending, Amputation, Blood, Body Horror, Darkfic, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Regeneration, Torture, Violence, Vivisection, Whump</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 09:00:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,565</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26556139</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemise/pseuds/alchemise</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They were getting better at keeping him alive.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Darkest Night 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Skin (unraveling)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/gifts">within_a_dream</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For a few wonderful moments after Joe regained consciousness, he didn't remember where he was.</p><p>Then it all came rushing back, and he groaned in both remembered—and agonizingly current—pain. He could feel multiple holes in his body, still healing. Holes dug out with dull blades this time, for variety's sake, as near as he could tell. They were shallow, just under the skin, but there were a lot of them, seemingly randomly placed all over his body. It had marked a change from having his bones broken with sadistic slowness, but he wasn't really appreciating the novelty of this new form of torture. He was surprised that he hadn't died from his wounds; his waking up had been from actual unconsciousness, brought about from continuous pain and exhaustion, not death. They were getting better at keeping him alive.</p><p>***</p><p>His streak of living only lasted until the next day, however.</p><p>At least, he thought it was the next day. Time was getting fuzzy. Fuzzier than it normally was, anyway, considering the many hundreds of years he'd been alive. But now, the days bled together in a way he'd never experienced before, and that was saying something.</p><p>It wasn't like this was the first time Joe had been tortured, of course. He'd also been held in captivity many times before. But the combination this time was taken to a new extreme. His captors were relentless, in… whatever it was they were doing to him. He assumed this was about experimentation—like Merrick, but oh so much worse—but he couldn't say for sure. They'd communicated nothing to him: asked him no questions, demanded nothing except his flesh and screams and increasing terror at how long this could possibly go on.</p><p>He'd kept things flippant at first. Kept that up as long as he could, as a way to show them that they couldn't <em>really</em> hurt him. But now after (what he was pretty sure were) weeks, he felt himself losing his edge. He'd tried negotiating with them and even arguing against the morality of their actions. But it was hard to debate morality with an opponent that never spoke and gave no clue as to what they believed in.</p><p>***</p><p>Atom by atom, cell by cell, Joe's body knit itself back together. He'd learned, over the years, exactly how much damage his body could take before he succumbed to (temporary) blackness and at what point during his regeneration he would wake up, aware of almost nothing but pain until his body repaired itself fully.</p><p>The healing <em>always</em> hurt. It was a stretching, pulling sensation, as cells divided at an accelerated rate to replenish the parts that had been lost. He wondered if it was the act of mitosis itself—at such an unnatural speed—that hurt so much. Or maybe the nerves just regenerated faster than the cells around them, leaving them raw and exposed until they were once again safe and covered by flesh.</p><p>The top layer of skin always healed last. It was the protective cover that kept everything else inside. He was starting to hate how easily it gave up its purpose and opened wide for his enemies.</p><p>***</p><p>He could feel Nicky's hand on him, tracing a gentle line up his abdomen. The touch was light as a feather, almost taunting, the barest contact of skin on skin. Joe smiled as his nerves danced at Nicky's touch. It was just a little bit ticklish, but promised much more feeling to come. Very very good feelings. Joe resisted opening his eyes; he wanted this moment to last just a bit longer.</p><p>Then the touch changed. Still light, but now there was a sharpness to it—a stinging sensation and the wetness of hot blood. It turned sharper still, cutting now into his skin instead of staying on top. He could feel the layers split apart and open, revealing fascia, muscles and then viscera underneath.</p><p>Joe could hold onto the fantasy of Nicky's touch no longer, in spite of his best efforts (oh what he would give to feel Nicky for real—he'd even take Nicky being the one to cut into him). Joe began to scream, again, as the last of the dream faded away.</p><p>***</p><p>His right hand was missing.</p><p>There was pain and the memory of pain across over his body, so it wasn't the nerves in the stump at his shoulder that alerted him. It was the feeling of <em>loss</em>, that a part of him was just not there anymore.</p><p>Joe turned his head as far as he could and looked at where his upper arm ended in a clean bloody line that smelled of cooked meat. A man with some sort of laser saw stepped back away from the table and joined others lining the walls. They were watching intently, some taking notes.</p><p>Joe found them even more unnerving than his absent arm, so he kept his gaze on his slowly rebuilding flesh.</p><p>A cell at a time, his arm regrew itself.</p><p>In spite of his long life, the biology of regeneration remained a mystery. His own body was a puzzle to him, reconstructing itself every time until, he knew, someday it wouldn't. But for now, he was mesmerized as ever to watch his arm reform before his eyes. Somehow it knew what it had been before and copied the now missing limb identically. It was up to the elbow now, his forearm bones starting to show themselves poking out into the empty space. He held his arm up to better see the flesh grow slowly around the bone, now forming his wrist and then the start of his hand.</p><p>A woman quickly rushed over to his side and restrained the newly grown arm, clearly alarmed at what had been the possibility of his escape.</p><p>It… hadn't occurred to him to try.</p><p>***</p><p>He thought of Quynh sometimes, and she weirdly gave him hope. She'd died countless times under the sea—none of them could ever bring themselves to calculate a number—yet Nile had dreamt of her still fighting, every single time she came back.</p><p>If Quynh could spend centuries trying to claw her way out of a metal coffin, while dying over and over and over again, then he could hold it together just a bit longer. Until someone finally came for him.</p><p>If they came for him.</p><p>Unlike Quynh.</p><p>***</p><p>Someone's hand was inside of him. He didn't know which was the greater hurt: the pain or the sense of violation.</p><p>His skin had failed him, failed to keep inside what should be inside and out what should be out. It was a betrayal of his body—his boundaries breached, an intruder allowed in.</p><p>His skin was fighting back, however, which made him feel oddly proud of its efforts. It was trying to close the giant hole over his guts, pulling against the metal hooks holding him open. He could feel the skin slowly winning, reforming around the metal, shrinking the hole.</p><p>He wondered which of his organs the man was currently holding.</p><p>More than that though he wondered what would happen if his skin reached the man's arm before the examination was complete. Would it just stop at the man's wrist, keeping his hand trapped inside Joe forever (or, more likely, before they cut it out again)? Or would his skin grow upwards and try to engulf the foreign object, accept it as part of him now, until he had grown around the man entirely and made them one?</p><p>The man withdrew before Joe's questions could be answered, removing his hand with a wet plop of organs falling back into place. Blood filled the remains of the hole and began to pour down his torso; the man must have nicked something on his way out.</p><p>Joe wondered what they'd move onto next. It was the only form of curiosity he had left.</p><p>***</p><p>Joe returned to life with a whimper and heard a soft hush in response. He opened his right eye—the left wasn't quite capable of focusing just yet (his face, they'd moved onto his face).</p><p>The figure before him could only be another dream. "Nicolo," Joe croaked, annoyed at how weak his voice sounded.</p><p>"Shush, my love. You must stay quiet." Nicky glanced at a door across the room. Joe figured he must not have taken care of all the guards yet.</p><p>Joe felt Nicky's fingers brush his hand while working at the restraints. The touch felt like burning: so intense and sharp that it was like the knives and scalpels working at him all over again.</p><p>There was such pain and pleasure there, where once there had been only pleasure, and long long ago, when they first knew each other as enemies, pain. Now there was both combined into one. Joe yearned for the hand to touch his again. He wanted nothing more than to lay with their bodies against each other, skin to skin, with Nicky enveloping him in that searing touch. They would melt into each other, their edges blurred, until they were one being—like how he'd imagined consuming his torturer within himself.</p><p>Except this time it would be Joe who'd fade away, his skin dissolving so that he could become a part of Nicky. Then nothing would ever hurt again.</p><p>Joe smiled at the thought, shivering every time Nicky's hand touched his.</p>
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